


a fate decided

by Saraste



Series: Femslash February 2020 [18]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Bi-Queens of Middle Earth, Day 18. shield, F/F, Femslash February 2020, Minas Tirith, Pre-Relationship, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: Tauriel falls for a mortal not once, but twice.
Relationships: Éowyn (Tolkien)/Tauriel (Hobbit Movies)
Series: Femslash February 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619392
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Femslash February





	a fate decided

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 18.shield of Femslash February 2020.

Such is Tauriel’s foolish heart that she would fall in love with a mortal not once but twice, yet, if she has learned anything during her long life, it is that there is no fighting love, not when it comes suddenly and unexpectedly and makes one breathless.

She finds her second love in the fierce shieldmaiden of Rohan, Èowyn, whom she meets in the wake of a great battle, at Minas Tirith, after she has seen one battle too many to her liking and the fate of the whole world hangs in a balance.

* 

She sees her first standing next to the stone garden-wall of the Houses of Healing, bundled in a cloak and regal, a woman who does not bend in the face of adversity, a great hero of their time who slew the Witch King of Angmar, a woman of song and legend. Her hair is pale like sunkissed wheat and the wind makes it dance wildly around that proud head as Éowyn, daughter of kings, stares out into the distance wreathed in dark clouds and malice where a last battle will be fought, a fate decided.

‘You wish to have gone with them,’ is the first thing Tauriel ever says to her and it is both a question and admission of her own want, for, save but a wound to her arm, she would be among those gone as well, as would have been her right, ‘as would have I,’ she adds, for clarification.

The Shieldmaiden turns to her, her flyaway hair momentarily obscuring her face and whatever emotion might have lingered there or been woken by the sight of a stranger, even if a maid such as herself. ‘Yes,’ she says, wiping hair out of her face in a gesture Tauriel feels that she could easily grow to find endearing, but the shade of resentment lingering on those beautiful features she does not like, ‘I would have gone with them to the end, or a new beginning, if fortune favours us, if light prevails. I would have gone and perished gladly, for the world, to help save it.’

Her words are dark, but the clouds have not lifted, the world still hangs in the balance, light making one last stance against the darkness ready to consume the world, to strike at its core to start its downfall. But there is still light in the world, marching toward almost certain doom, and here, standing side by side, light and hope still stand firm.

Tauriel looks towards the darkness that is waiting with malicious intent to swallow the world and she cannot help being grim even when she thinks that she has found again that which she had not been searching for as, having lost once, she doesn’t want to lose again. ‘We may yet find use of your shield and sword, if the future so requires. I would gladly perish side by side with you, if it should come to that.’ She resents the spring in her heart and the thawing of her long frozen feelings now, here, when all hope is almost lost, but there is no helping love, no preventing hope.

‘You would? But, forgive me I, but I do not even know your name, all I can see is that you are an elf.’

Tauriel finds herself smiling. ‘I am Tauriel, once from Mirkwood.’

‘Once, but no more?’

‘Yes,’ and the truth of it is lesser now and easier to admit, as the pain is less and less fresh by each passing year, ‘because I loved and lost.’

‘Forgive me for prying,’ the shieldmaiden says and turns away, but Tauriel sees the flash of hurt in her eyes and can deduce from what she knows the reason for it, and she is sorry for her yet glad, as a heart yet unclaimed can be won, ‘it was not my intention.’

Tauriel lays her hand down onto the stonewall they are looking over into the horizon, wondering if she had learned to live with stone, within a mountain, had fate so degreed. Yet here she is once again with a fetching mortal, her heart weak and wanting, having found itself ready for loving once more. She has lived decades among mortals, but rarely within their cities, preferring to roam the wilds, where she has been able to lose herself and find ways to live with her grief without it consuming her, and this woman, the wild daughter of horselords, would not live easy in dwellings of stone, Tauriel thinks, hopes.

She wishes that she had seen her defeat of the nazgûl, had been there to witness the courage at the face of such a foe, but she had been battling her own battle by then, gaining her own wounds due to the sheer amount of enemies, not lack of practise, as Legolas had teased her when he had visited, his own foolish love for a mortal written clear across his beaming features, cemented by the new braid Tauriel had easily recognized, even when she had last seen one what felt like eons ago.

But there is fighting still to come, even if light prevails in this coming conflict, and they will be a shield of light against the dark, and there  _ will _ be time to think on love, to see if her feeling might be reciprocated.

She has been silent for too long for it to be natural for her to answer, but her companion seems not to mind. As if of one body, they stand there, side by side on the battlement, staring into the darkness, a shield against what is to come, hands reaching to each other, ready to grasp hope… ready to love again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ...this is NOT the last of his story.


End file.
